Ersatz G.B.

Cherry Red; 2011

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When John Peel said that he was incapable of telling if the Fall had ever made a bad record, that had something to do with the fact that they mostly hadn't until fairly recently, and more to do with the spell that Mark E. Smith's unwavering attitude casts over the faithful. There's no other sound like Smith's spittle-flecked snarl, and no other lyrical sensibility like his; he's never allowed the Fall to rest on its history, or its listeners to get too comfortable.

But that's not the same thing as saying that the Fall are incapable of making a bad record, and although a lot of their discography is difficult but rewarding, their 15,000th album Ersatz G.B.'s abrasiveness, inscrutability, and tedium are increasingly tough to take with repeated close listening. So it raises a couple of questions, such as: What would a total failure of a Fall album sound like, and how would that be different from this one? And what does it mean when it's impossible to tell a band's new record from a weak parody of what they've been up to for the past few years?

One way that the Fall could go wrong, for instance, if that were possible, would be for their music to fall off. Despite Smith's insistence that he's the only important member, he used to have bandmates who were distinctive musicians-- Brix, Steve Hanley, Marc Riley, the Mouse on Mars guys. These days, he has to work with musicians who will put up with what being in the Fall in the 21st century entails. The lineup on Ersatz G.B., as it happens, is the same as on the last couple of albums, but it could be yet another anonymous pickup crew-- and if you removed Smith's vocals from it, it would be a nearly irredeemable, almost totally generic hard rock record. The riff of "Greenway" is, in fact, copped from Greek comedy-metal band Anorimoi's "Gameboy", except that the current edition of the Fall doesn't have anything like Anorimoi's precision and bite.

And Smith? How could a record with him on it ever go entirely awry? Well, he's still Mark E. Smith-- there are always developments to follow. He's got a new voice he uses on a few songs, a death-rattle gargle-growl; as usual, there are a couple of WTF lyrical moments, especially "Nate Will Not Return", in which Smith sees how many rhymes he can force with the name of the Gossip Girl character. And there are still a few drops to be milked out of Smith's favorite tricks: mocking middlebrow culture, dragging "un-songlike" diction and fun-to-pronounce proper nouns into song lyrics, fracturing the meaning of a sentence mid-phrase. (One line in "Mask Search", possibly the best-enunciated on the album, does all of those things: "I'm so sick of Snow Patrol/ And where to find Esso lubricant/ And mobile number.")

At this point, though, the band's music is so pro forma that most of his lyrics could be applied to any track here with no significant difference. "I've Seen Them Come" is an idea for an intriguing 20-second passage of a song, stretched out to an unbearable six minutes. "Age of Chang" features a tinny condenser-mic recording accompanied by the properly recorded band, which would be a clever idea if Smith hadn't already recorded "Paintwork" more than 25 years ago. When "Happi Song" turns up halfway through, it's a relief to not hear Smith out front for a few minutes-- it's a sweet, simple tune written by keyboardist Eleni Poulou, and sung by her in a fragile, thickly accented voice (with Smith occasionally making unpleasant noises in the background).

If you believe the Fall are incapable of badness by virtue of their singularity, then here you go; Smith's Mancunian sneer will always raise a Pavlovian response for those of us who are used to its signaling genius. But hold this shabby, grueling album up next to Hex Enduction Hour or Bend Sinister or The Marshall Suite or any number of the great, challenging records the Fall made when they were challenging themselves, too, and it falls apart.